The Legend of Hyrule - Interactive Zelda timeline for Ocarina of Time prep
Show HN: The Zelda timeline to catch up before the Ocarina of Time remake
The Legend of Hyrule is an unofficial fan-made interactive timeline that maps every major Zelda game into one coherent chronology, from the Golden Goddesses' creation myth through Skyloft, the branching eras after Ocarina of Time, and up to Tears of the Kingdom. Each entry summarizes the story in a few lines, while the site also tracks Nintendo's official release order and the child, adult, and fallen-hero splits. It's a handy catch-up tool for anyone planning to revisit Ocarina of Time before the remake, whether you're a newcomer or a lapsed fan.
Thanks to my mum who has kept my N64, the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask cartridges safe for 28 years, awaiting my return.
- somat
I don't consider it to be one unified story at all, I mean some of the series obviously are connected, but the rest are, as the name suggests, legends about Zelda. Unconnected unreliable narrations about some sort of heroic past events. Everybody agrees about the characters involved but as to what exactly happened, that is lost to time. So each culture is now telling the story a different way, emphasizing whatever is important to them.
I consider as a sort of modern equivalent to the coyote stories. or Paul Bunyan, Finn McCool, Gilgamesh, Or really, any legendary heroic epic passed along by oral storytelling.
So it is fun to try to fit it into some sort of unified timeline. But I don't think it is, that is not how they were actually written and we would loose most of the interesting storytelling flexibility if that is how they write them in the future.
- ranger207
I don't think most Japanese media is as concerned with fitting things into a canon as much as American media is. Like, in Gundam, you have 0079, Thunderbolt, and Origin all allegedly in the UC canon, but there's pretty significant deviations in Thunderbolt and Origin from 0079 so they're not really the same timelines. American comics will also have multiple timelines or universes, but they'll make it clear which one each individual series goes with, and have crossover events explicitly acknowledging the existence of the different canons. Japanese media doesn't tend to do that, and I think trying to fit it into a coherent timeline is a fool's errand
- collinmcnulty
I do not want to rain on your parade, but I find attempts to impose a coherent timeline on Zelda miss the opportunity to engage with it as a legend, a story told over and over with certain essential parts but many changing interpretations. How our very familiarity with the story creates the opportunity for surprise. There are so many fictional worlds with sprawling lore, and so few that engage with the retelling of stories and myths like Zelda does.
- hyperhello
What’s the word for trying to do cluster analysis on what is actually randomly distributed data? The games do have obvious similarities and sometimes refer to each other, but they’re independent events.
- hmokiguess
I just wanted to say thank you, you made my day brighter because you reminded me the remake comes out in 17 days and you got me to reconnect with one of my favourite games.
Seems like a lot of folks here are eager to discuss about interpretation and opinion, I take that as Nintendo did a great job providing enough to keep everyone engaged into the dream and fantasy behind it.
Cheers To more Zelda!
- prophesi
Love the site, though I'll always prefer this attempt at explaining the Zelda timeline by Brian David Gilbert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-25c8Rsobw
- gradus_ad
I prefer to think of LoZ without a coherent timeline. Just 3 archetypal souls finding each other again and again and again...
- sharkbot
Don't forget to include:
- Link: The Faces of Evil
- Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
- Link's Crossbow Training
- the various Hyrule Warriors games
Good luck! :)